Like Common Sense by Thomas Paine?

Spent a good portion of yesterday indoors attempting to beat the heat. When I did venture out to walk down here to the library, I was amused by how the clouds directly over head resembled those of us crazy enough to be outside. They were weary, weighted and wilting. Poor things. Poor us.

While holed up in my apartment, I caught an amusing broadcast of "The Infinite Mind" on the subject of Writer's Block. I'm always irked by those annoying sots who claim that WB does not exist just because they've never experienced it. Hell, on the broadcast even Joyce"I write in my sleep" Carol Oates (Laura's clever nickname for her - not mine) admitted that once when she was 17 she couldn't write for 46 minutes. Fran Lebowitz, as always, was outrageously funny and most "helpful" as one of contemporary America's most celebrated victims of blockdom. Said she was fundamentally lazy (very hard thing to admit in this workaholic culture), a chronic procrastinator who would much rather talk than write and that her publisher had finally gotten her to commit to a write another book by telling her it could be a "short" one.

The topic of the short book that was decided on was Progress (I can't recall why). Fran said she found this pretty embarrassing (no doubt) so in order to justify it a little bit she asked the Knopf guy "Oh you mean like Common Sense by Thomas Paine?" God love her. So this book was supposed to be out last spring and in closing the interview the IM guy asked her when, in fact, we could expect to see it on the bookstore shelves. Lebowitz, the chronic procrastinator and she-wit supreme, told him, "Oh, in two months."

Can't wait. I would never teach a child to smoke either.